


Mind Your Head

by Highly_Illogical



Series: Kowalski Family Snapshots [5]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Childhood, Cute, F/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 22:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9348692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Highly_Illogical/pseuds/Highly_Illogical
Summary: Josiah Kowalski has heard the story of Daddy and his funny helmet a thousand times, so naturally, when faced with an Erumpent, his first thought is to protect his head. Hijinks ensue.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Josiah Quincy Kowalski is an original character, otherwise I own nothing.

Josiah’s chubby cheeks, by general agreement, bore a striking resemblance to a baby angel from a Muggle painting (they were learning to refer to the larger non-magical world as ‘Muggle’ by now, if only to avoid strange looks from their British fellows, who had otherwise not batted an eye at the sight of a mixed couple and were proving good neighbors, if slightly obsessed with tea). His downy golden curls were darkening with age to look more like Jacob’s, but his eyes remained his mother’s in more than just color.

Queenie was not convinced he had fully inherited her gift, but being the son of a Legilimens had made him an extraordinarily sensitive boy, attuned to everybody’s moods like a weather vane spinning with the shifting winds.

With a war brewing, or two of them, if the disquieting signs coming from Muggle news were any indication, a child’s innocence felt like a delicate thing, a precious collector’s item that would break if you so much as breathed on it the wrong way, and with Josiah, it was twice as hard to live by the unspoken rule that demanded they leave their worries out the door and make the Kowalski household a safe haven where he could have as much of a happy childhood as possible. He knew. Not their exact thoughts, perhaps, but he knew, and he was often sullen because of it, as though he could already read the screaming _Daily Prophet_ headlines.

There was only one cure for those bad moods, and it was Uncle Newt’s suitcase: a sanctuary within a sanctuary, the Brit’s portable menagerie was quite possibly his favorite place in the whole wide world. Josiah never did anything in halves: if the announcement of yet another attack weighing heavily on the adults’ minds could make him sulky and prone to tantrums, it also had to be said that when he was happy, he was _intensely_ so, and the creatures down there were often the cause of it.

Out of the motley crew of magical beasts, his best friends seemed to be, much to everyone’s dismay, Dougal and the Niffler. There were no great objections about the former: his large eyes seemed to hold a deeper understanding of what it meant to have a child in his care than anyone, except perhaps Newt, had given him credit for, and he’d taken to babysitting him much like he had with the baby Occamies, knowing perfectly well that Josiah was the human equivalent of a cub and had to be treated gently. He even catered to his childish demands to play hide and seek, only going invisible for a little while at a time so as not to make the game impossible and delighting in his shrieks of victory. The Niffler, however, was another story entirely: Josiah was forever sneaking shiny things into his pockets to give him, and if that had won him the little critter’s eternal gratitude and admiration, it also meant that half the silverware was perpetually missing, and Queenie’s Summoning Spells were sure to pull an endless variety of trinkets out of increasingly creative hiding places on his person.

“Just wait ‘til the little menace can get ‘em back for himself. It’ll be open warfare,” said Jacob, the laughter in his eyes belying his words. “Be a dear and warn me when that happens, huh, honey? I just want to know when to duck.”

But the truth of the matter was that the mood swings that had nothing to do with how his day was going were just about the most magical thing Josiah had ever done. He was being watched; for what, he probably wasn’t sure, but he was being watched and he was well aware of it. Not that they would cherish him any less if he turned out to be just a non-magical boy with a knack for knowing how people were feeling, as Queenie repeated on an almost weekly basis, but still, their plans for his future hinged on any sign of magic he might show, and they couldn’t be blamed for keeping their eyes and ears wide open.

“Is he… I dunno, late on schedule?”

“There’s no such thing as a schedule, sweetie. They say it should show by the time they’re seven, but there have been exceptions. Besides, the first outbursts often come when they’re angry or scared. Maybe the reason we’re still waiting is just that he’s a happy child.”

“That’s a nice way to put it.” Then another thought occurred to him: “Did your folks ever scare you on purpose?”

“No need. Tina started early, and as for me, I was always crying because the world just wouldn’t shut up. I’ve heard of families who have tried that, but it rarely goes well, and we are _not_ doing that to our son. He gets into enough trouble without help.”

Still, Josiah was now the ripe age of five, and other than staring at everyone with those eyes that seemed to know just a little too much, he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary just yet.

The kid hadn’t said as much, but the way things were going, he seemed well on his way to becoming a magizoologist when he grew up. He certainly had more of an aptitude for eating sweets than for making them, and he had insisted on visiting the Erumpents again, something which always put Jacob on high alert.

Newt had fully intended to return the one he had to Africa, not wanting her to suffer through yet another mating season alone, but as it often happened to his plans, all thoughts of doing that had been derailed. It should have been easy enough: a tearful goodbye, to be sure, but he could take comfort in the fact that she was going to a better place. But that was not to be. Instead of a good, peaceful spot to release her back to the wild, he had found a trail of devastation: tall grass flattened to the ground, some of it burnt to a crisp in irregular patches like a long line of breadcrumbs to follow, like in that Muggle story. Naturally, he had, and what he found at the end was a scene he wouldn’t soon forget. A once powerful male specimen was lying wounded, hardly able to rise to his feet, his face raw and oozing a sickening mixture of blood and explosive fluid, his horn conspicuously missing. He had obviously been the cause of the disaster, probably traipsing around in pain until he found a place to rest and dripping scorching liquid as he went. Newt’s heart, which was probably bigger than his suitcase by now, had once again cried out and expanded a little more to make room for him in his affections.

Their first season together had been quite a pitiful spectacle, with him loudly proclaiming his intentions for the whole case to hear and almost flattening the entire habitat in his desperate rolling and stomping, but without his mighty horn, which Newt had been sadly unable to regrow, it almost looked like she would refuse him. But in their limited environment, she didn’t exactly have her choice of suitors, and he, in turn, had no stronger, healthier competitors to contend with, and so nature had eventually run its course. She now had a playful young male trailing after her wherever she went, the apple of her eye, and no further trips to Africa were planned until the little one became independent enough to survive on his own. Josiah loved going to see how he was doing, perhaps feeling some sort of affinity—cubs had to stick together, after all.

But there was another reason why the Kowalski heir had taken such a liking to the Erumpents’ enclosure, and much to his embarrassment, Jacob was reminded of what it was as they walked into it half a step behind Newt, who was carrying a large bucketful of yummy leaves and fruits for the happy family.

“Tell me about Central Park again, Daddy.”

“Well, it all starts with your Daddy putting on a funny helmet, because—what was it again?”

Newt turned from where he had been petting the mother encouragingly, nudging her towards the food he’d just unloaded nearby. The cub was half asleep a few feet away, for once not threatening to run them over in his general enthusiasm towards life.

“I believe I said something to the effect of ‘your skull is susceptible to breakage under immense force’.”

“Yeah, that.”

Jacob eyed the beasts with equal parts fondness and wariness. As much as he’d come to love them, he wasn’t thrilled about letting his son anywhere near them, and wasn’t entirely sure about Newt’s trust in him as a proper chaperone: if things turned south, what could he do but grab the kid and run? But the Brit remained steadfast in his conviction that they wouldn’t hurt a fly so long as they interacted with them correctly, and had often reinforced the message that he and Jacob made, in fact, the perfect team for Josiah’s visits—one to keep the creatures in check, the other, perhaps more importantly, to do the same with the child.

The cub’s ears perked up at Josiah’s peal of laughter. The kid apparently loved picturing his father in that unlikely getup.

“Look, he’s awake!”

For all of three seconds, Jacob was thankful that he wouldn’t have to find yet another suitable euphemism for what exactly Uncle Newt had tried to do next—and the rest was a mad rush of sound and movement that made his heart stop.

Josiah made a beeline for the younger creature, grabby hands outstretched, and his mother reared up with a raging bellow that chilled him to the core.

“Josiah, no!”

The child screamed in terror and Jacob had the fleeting impression of a flash of something metallic flying towards them before Newt slammed into them and whisked them away to the safety of the shed in the tightening, sickening lurch of Apparition, only to disappear again without another word to do damage control on the other end.

Josiah had landed gracelessly, crying his eyes out, and Jacob couldn’t resist giving him a once-over—was it just the shock, or had Newt left some bits behind in his haste?

But he appeared thankfully unharmed, his cries subsiding to quiet sniffling as he whispered a steady stream of soothing nonsense to him—and it was only then that Jacob realized what that flash of metal had been. The bucket that had contained the little family’s meal was upturned on his head, his voice echoing strangely from under it. He tipped it backwards to get a good look at him. It would have been worth taking a picture and laughing about it, hadn’t they just narrowly escaped the least comical situation he could think of.

“W-what happened, Daddy?”

“We’d have to ask Uncle Newt, but my best guess is that the little one’s mother thought you were trying to hurt him, you see. I know for a fact that if your Mommy thought someone was trying to hurt you, she’d land a good hex or two before they could harm a hair on your head—and speaking of your head, what’s that bucket doing on it?”

“It’s a helmet,” he answered as simply as if he’d just said the sky was blue. “Like yours.”

Jacob took the improvised headgear off his head, smiling weakly at his reasoning. That had been too close.

Wait a minute.

“Josiah, that thing was…” He gave himself a breathless moment to put the pieces together. “Yeah. It was nowhere near you.” He exhaled loudly.

“We have to—no, wait. Maybe leaving right now isn’t the best idea, but as soon as Uncle Newt comes back and sees we’re okay, we’re climbing right back up and telling Mommy. I might not be the best guy around to ask, but I’m pretty sure you’re a wizard, Josiah.”

**Author's Note:**

> Not 100% sure you can Apparate inside the case, but I needed it to be possible, or she'd flatten them.


End file.
